Friend: Returning Player (Ticket: 7893551), banned after power outage

Hello, the following is from my friends perspective. He can't log in the game or the forums so he asked me to post it.

My friend says;

I'm a returning player from ~2015, been playing for almost 2 weeks. Last friday my account was banned. I have opened a ticket from the website with id 7893551 as an anonymous user(can't login anet website too).

I only have a friend in game and the only conversation we take is "hi" then we go on discord so the ban cant be behavioral. I have 0 social activity besides him in the game, don't even have a guild.

2 hours before the ban, there was a power outage for a few minutes. Then I relogged and continued playing. I'm guessing the ban was IP related, maybe account was flagged as "Somebody foreign is trying to get access". I don't use VPN or any intermediate software.

The ban was last friday and hopefully this thread will catch some attention. I read that the general response is 72 hours, but current situations may cause delays.

Love your game, please have a look.

Support doesn't communicate on the forums. Your friend's only hope is a response to the support ticket.

Question: Doesn't the ban notification usually state the reason for the ban?

When the account ban (not sure it is a ban, I think it is an anti-hacking system on Anet's end from the description) is lifted, I recommend your friend enable some type of two-factor authentication. This helps a lot if your IP address changes and the "Remember me" cannot be used/doesn't work for some reason. I get an SMS that gives me a code, and I have to enter the code in order to unlock the account.

This suggestion won't help your friend now, unfortunately, but it might prevent problems in the future.

Good luck to you and your friend.

Not using game chat is actually a bad idea, they may've been flagged as a bot. You have to stay at least somewhat active in the game besides just hitting things, otherwise there's no way to tell the difference between a person and a bot.

@Hannelore.8153 said:Not using game chat is actually a bad idea, they may've been flagged as a bot. You have to stay at least somewhat active in the game besides just hitting things, otherwise there's no way to tell the difference between a person and a bot.

I don't think this is anywhere near true. I don't speak to anyone in-game, always play offline, and I've never been accused of being a 'bot'.

@Inculpatus cedo.9234 said:

@"Hannelore.8153" said:Not using game chat is actually a bad idea, they may've been flagged as a bot. You have to stay at least somewhat active in the game besides just hitting things, otherwise there's no way to tell the difference between a person and a bot.

You don't need to be "accused" of it, its an automated system, and false positives happen.

Then, I, and others, must be very fortunate. :no_mouth:

@Hannelore.8153 said:

@Inculpatus cedo.9234 said:

@Hannelore.8153 said:Not using game chat is actually a bad idea, they may've been flagged as a bot. You have to stay at least somewhat active in the game besides just hitting things, otherwise there's no way to tell the difference between a person and a bot.

That's not how it works, if it was an automated system we wouldn't have many "bots". What actually happens is a human being tries to communicate with the person that is "Accused" of botting. If they don't get a reply then they take action against the account. To avoid false positives there is a long delay for the person to actually communicate (they might be legit away of their keyboard for a variety of reasons and not botting)

@OP, do not speculate about the reason. Have your friend contact support by creating a supportticket. IP-bans rarely happen and only when on the same IP very severe behaviour has been observed where an account ban did not work.

A ban for a single power outage doesn't happen. It can happen that an account get banned due to power issues, but only if they are recurring and only when you play PvP.

A common thing happening is that someone acts innocent to a friend while knowing more. I'm not saying this is the case, but just adding it to the equation.Bottom line is that support does not react here, but only to a ticket created by your friend.

Your friend not playing since 2015 probably set off some flag. Did your friend change ISPs and/or move in the last 5 years? Once your friend gets his account straighten out. Have him change his password and set up SMS validation. That way he can play from any location. Have him make sure the email address associated with the account is still valid. I would think there would be emails explaining why he can't login. I had to go through a verification process just to change email addresses. My old email went from .com to .net which messed things up.